If “staying active” is the key to a long life, Carl Icahn will probably live for years. At 77, the US investor is on a concerted activist campaign. He has tried (unsuccessfully) to disrupt Michael Dell’s buyout of the computer maker he founded, dined with Apple’s chief executive and pressed him to return cash to shareholders, and last week planted board members – including his son Brett – at Nuance, the Boston technology company that gives Apple’s Siri his/her voice.
But despite proclaiming in Forbes magazine in June that “What I Do Is Good for America”, Mr Icahn will struggle to lose his “corporate raider” label. When he revealed his activist stance at Nuance, analysts wrote: “Let the fireworks begin.” Board members and senior managers’ first reaction to an approach from Mr Icahn – or any hedge fund – is to take cover.
To say activism has a bad name among operating executives is not, however, true. It has many names. Mr Icahn’s is the quintessential American brand, marked by public fisticuffs and proxy battles. In the same style, Daniel Loeb of hedge fund Third Point did not write to Sotheby’s chief executive William Ruprecht this month to laud his management skills. But what if, instead of attacking Mr Ruprecht’s “extravagant” taste for “farm-to-table” organic delicacies, Mr Loeb was sitting at the table advising him to follow a different diet?